SuSE Linux will run Microsoft Office

PizzaFace writes "SuSE Linux is developing a desktop Linux distribution that will allow Windows users to continue using (some of) their Windows applications, including Microsoft Office. The SuSE Linux Office Desktop will be available for $129 in January, and will include Acronis OS Selector for disk partitioning during installation and Codeweavers CrossOver Office for Windows API emulation."

Re:Conversion in process

[warmcat]

Xilinx stuff will already work under wine.
See http://www.polybus.com/xilinx_on_linux.html [polybus.com]

Re:Great news!

[unapersson]

No it doesn't need Windows, otherwise there wouldn't be much point. The whole purpose of Wine and its derivatives is that you can run Windows applications without having the OS installed.

Re:Great news!

[Geert-Jan]

> Windows won't be killed since, AFAIK, it must be installed for Suse/Crossover to work.

No, it doesn't. Crossover Office works just fine without a real Windows installation.

Re:Crossover

[AyeRoxor!]

"How many geeks are going to buy a desktop OS? None."

I have. I started learning POs when I got my first IBM, a PCjr, at age 7. It booted up into rom (or cartridge) basic, and I started programming. Now, at almost 25, I'm a paid programmer. But I never learned linux and of my friends, the only one who knows linux even moderately well lives about an hour and a half away. So I grabbed Lycoris [lycoris.com]. Since all a GUI is is a front-end for a command interpreter, I'm doing things in the GUI and finding out what they do in the CI. My intent, of course, is to wean myself from the GUI like many people did from Win3x and 9x. Shouldn't take me long. But when I forget something in a pinch, the gui's there. Now I see the things the gui does, and look up how it does it. It's been pretty constructive.

Windows 98 won't run MS Office

[delphi125]

http://news.google.com/news?num=30&hl=en&ie=UTF-8& filter=0&q=cluster:www%2ebetanews%2ecom%2farticle% 2ephp3%3fsid%3d1035914045 [google.com]

I'm surprised this isn't on the /. main page already!

Re:Conversion in process

[PSargent]

Using Modelsim for Linux now. You can't get the PE (Personal Edition) though. That's only on Windows.

I bet it won't run Office 11

[microbob]

Seems the new Office 11 will only run on XP and W2K SP3.

Get the scoop from ZeeDee Net....

http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104-963777.html

I mean, it was just a matter of time....

Visio Alternative = Dia

[jaaron]

While it doesn't have some of the features and templates that Visio does, Dia [lysator.liu.se] is a free (GPL) alternative.

Re:Umm

[Gerein]

Or am I missing something major entirely?

I think so. The point is, that SuSE is developing a new version of their distribution aimed at the corporate desktop. Crossover Office is just one special component, that'll differ from their normal distribution. There will be other stuff to make the transition from windows easier and probably no more server installations.

Second thing you miss is this [codeweavers.com]. "Now for only $54.95"... CrossOver Office is not free. You can't just "download it seperately" for your normal SuSE distribution.

Re:Mac Office on Linux?

[GreenKiwi]

If you are running LinuxPPC, you could check out MacOnLinux [maconlinux.com].

Writing the equivalent of WINE for OS X would be a very very large undertaking.

Re:Um, and how do I win here?

[NeonSpirit]

And where are you going to get an XP licence, retail on amazon is $176.99 for an upgrade and $269.00 for full, this is after rebates. With corporate bult licencing you will get this down by 20-30% but SuSE will almost certainly do the same.

Re:A drawback of sorts..

[eigerface]

It wasn't so much that I could shut my brain off, but I was fairly certain I could ease my fears about losing work due to nutty macros, worms, and what-have-you.

Two important points.

1. Disabling (or just not using)Outlook will limit possible infestation.

2. Viruses won't have root access.

I personally think this is a masterstroke for SuSE, which alas may go unheard. (The Mouse That Roared?)

Re:Too expensive for non-geeks

[NeonSpirit]

According to an article on The register [theregister.co.uk] the version of CroseOver which comes with Xandros is not supported by CodeWeavers.

Having said that, you need to know that Crossover is not supporting the version that comes with Xandros. For support, you'll have to pay extra. The nice thing is, you probably won't need any support. "It just works," is what Xandros CEO Michael Begos told me. Now that I've had the chance to install Xandros and run it, I have to agree. .

This could account for the price difference.

Re:Conversion in process

[jeff_bond]

Half of my engineers just switched to Linux plus StarOffice for their day-to-day communications. So far, so good. If these emulators get good enough to run OrCAD, Modelsim, and the FPGA development packages, then we can lose Windows completely from our R&D operation.

Modelsim runs on Linux currently (as does synopsys design compiler and some back end layout tools). I reckon all EDA tools will soon run on linux, most of them already do anyway. The only problem with using PCs for serious EDA work is the limited amount of RAM you can install (4GB). We have a few linux boxes with 4GB of ram and even then, a single process is limited to 3GB - sometimes that's just not enough. For serious synthesis jobs we still have to run on a 64bit HP machine with 8GB of RAM.

Re:Free Port of MSAccess??

[oliverthered]

www.sourceforge.net/projects/haccess

Sourceforge site is a bit outof date, so mail me (at the sourceforge email address) if you want a copy/assistance

XP Home has no support for SMT CPUs

[yerricde]

Who doesn't have an old Windows 9X disk sitting around.

Who can still find his or her old Windows 98se or ME disc? And who can find one that isn't scratched so bad it's unreadable?

For a home user Windows XP might as well just be $99.

It appears that unlike Microsoft's Windows XP Professional operating system, Microsoft's Windows XP Home Edition operating system will not work well with Intel's newest Pentium brand processor. The new CPU has a "hyperthreading" feature that lets two threads share one set of datapaths, for performance that lies somewhere between one CPU and two. It appears as two processors to the operating system, but XP Home supports only one logical processor [microsoft.com], unlike XP Pro which supports two. XP Home also does not support a remote desktop similar to that of XP Pro or any X11 based system.

And if you are buying a PC and plan to use Windows anyway why not buy it with the machine and get the benefit of the OEM price.

With the OEM discount, the price of Windows XP Professional comes down to about $141 per seat (based on this 3-pack [pagecomputers.com]). If Walmart.com were to sell the $200 PCs with Windows XP installed, the price would rise to $340, and the Windows license would make up over 40 percent of the price of the computer.

Re:Mac Office on Linux?

[Equuleus42]

Office X is written in Carbon [apple.com], which is a compatability layer to allow Mac OS applications to work seamlessly with Mac OS X with minimal code tweaking. Sadly, Carbon applications cannot easily be ported to other platforms. According to this [macworld.com] article, Microsoft's MacBU unit chose Carbon because it allowed them to port their code to Mac OS X in a year.

Even if Carbon allowed for easy cross-platform compatibility, it would be at the source code level and not the binary level. The best hope we would have to run Office X on Linux would be to couple Mac-on-Linux [maconlinux.org] with a fast PPC system emulator for x86. Unfortunately the latter does not exist (to my knowledge).

Re:Conversion in process

[Lozzer]

If you can get a second PC for a day or two then you could install an IMAP server on it, copy your outlook mails to the IMAP server, then copy them to whatever Linux mail client you chose.

If you have a low powered second pc anyway you could keep it as a firewall/mail box - thats what I do.

Re:0S/2

[operagost]

Or you could have bought the blue box, which included full Windows support for about $25 US more. OR you could have told OS/2 to look for your Windows floppies on drive B:. OR, you could have swapped the drives in your BIOS or on the cable.

Your loss.

Not without my Clippy!

[duncan7]

From The Codeweavers supported apps list: [codeweavers.com]

Known Limitations ...
* The Office Assistant does not work well yet and usually causes malfunctions. Thus it is disabled by default.

Is this a bug or a feature?